


As You Wish

by Jassy



Series: Heart [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 05:26:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17440808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jassy/pseuds/Jassy
Summary: Sequel to Loss of Heart. After an ending, a new beginning.





	As You Wish

It seemed fitting to make a trip to Eggsy’s empty grave on the anniversary of his death. It felt a bit cliché, perhaps, a little bit too movie-like, but Harry felt the need to go _somewhere_ on the day and there was nowhere else. It was an almost perversely bright and sunny day. The grass was beautifully green, birds were chirping merrily, and even the London traffic seemed muted. Harry stared down at the headstone, with Eggsy’s full name and criminally short life span etched upon it, and the flowers old and new that decorated it. He added his own bundle of red roses to the group and sighed. “There’s no fool like an old fool, Eggsy,” he murmured to the breeze.

“You got that right, bruv.”

Harry swayed, catching himself on the black marble. He turned, one hand clutching his erratically beating heart. Leaning against the tree that would offer pleasant shade in the afternoon to Eggsy grave, a too familiar and impossible figure leaned. “Oh,” he whispered. “I’ve finally snapped. Well done to me then on the timing.”

Eggsy smirked and took a few steps closer, coming full into the sunlight. His hair was much longer than Harry had ever seen it, bleached nearly white as though he’d been living somewhere very hot and sunny. He wore a plain blue tee shirt and worn out jeans that gathered over scuffed motorcycle boots. “You’ve not snapped, Harry. Well, not no more than you already were. Never thought you’d leave Kingsman. Figured they’d have to drag your corpse from behind that fucking desk.”

“I hated that desk. Always meant to replace it when it was my turn, but it somehow didn’t matter very much once I was behind it.” True enough. That monstrosity had been one of Chester’s first changes to Kingsman, so that everyone coming to him would be aware of his power and wealth.

“Not gonna ask how I survived?”

Harry smiled genially. “Why on earth would I ask such a thing of my hallucination?”

Eggsy reached out and grabbed his hand. For a figment of his imagination, his hands were remarkably solid and warm, and rough with calluses. He withdrew something from his pocket and wrapped Harry’s fingers around it tightly enough to bruise. “Ain’t a hallucination, bruv. Real as the day, me.”

Harry pulled his hand back and opened his fingers. Laying on his palm was a familiar enough medal. He flipped it over to see the numbers, worn with time and handling, etched into the back. It was the medal he’d given to Eggsy, and the unique, single use phone number that would no longer even ring if someone tried it. He’d caught glimpses of it at various times during Eggsy’s training, but he’d long since assumed it discarded somewhere. His knees finished going out from under him and he slid down the cold marble face of Eggsy’s headstone, crushing the flowers beneath his backside. “How….” He looked up. There was still something cold in Eggsy’s eyes, but there was understanding there, too. Of course there was. Eggsy was too familiar with what it felt like to have someone appear before you when you’d thought them long dead. “Why? Why appear to me now?”

Eggsy shrugged. “Been watching you for a while. This is the first time you’ve come here. Was kinda wondering if you was planning something stupid.”

“I no longer make plans, stupid or otherwise. I retired.”

Eggsy sank to the grass, legs crossing easily beneath him. “I noticed that. Made a couple big changes before you did. What’s that about?”

Harry let his head rest against the unforgiving marble. “Do you honestly think, if there had been someone else there to be a voice of reason, that any of us would have kept the secret we did? Merlin was too convinced of his own superior judgement to second guess himself, Roxy was too afraid that he was right and she was wrong to go against him, and I was too much a fool, too afraid, to drop things and come back and tell you myself. I-“ Harry stopped, his shock-sluggish brain finally catching up to things. “How do you know about the changes?”

“Oh, I got all of Kingsman bugged. Weren’t hard, really. You lot like to bug each other all the time anyway, weren’t hard to finagle my own tech into the mix.”

“We also do regular sweeps,” Harry pointed out.

“Like I said, I made my own. Weren’t hard, once I seen what was already used. Fused right into the wiring, holds its own charge for up to 24 hours during an outage. Visual and audio, and works through the signal sent out by all known jammers. Got everything – even Guinevere’s office.” Eggsy batted his eyes mock innocently. “Just to be sure she’s on the level o’ course. Would never betray someone’s trust an’ all.” Harry flinched. Eggsy grew serious. “They were good changes, Harry. Guinevere – she’s helping a lot of people. And Percy is aces as Arthur.”

“Thank you for that, Eggsy, though I hardly deserve praise for anything that I’ve done, considering how I hurt you. Nothing will ever make up for that.”

“Is that what you was trying to do?”

“No. How could I? The moment you died, the part of me capable of caring died too. That was simply…the last gasp of duty.”

Eggsy nodded, fiddling with the grass in front of his legs. “Why did you wait so long to talk to me, Harry? I kept thinking you’d track me down and yell at me, tell me to get over it or somethin’. You never did. Not til the last. Why not?”

Harry hesitated. He hadn’t even asked himself that question, not when there had been so many other offenses to question and berate himself for. “I’m not entirely sure,” he said finally. “I think-I think I was afraid to lose hope. If I didn’t say anything, if I left things as they were, then there was still hope that we could get back to what we were building before—”

“Before I fucked up the dog test,” Eggsy said evenly.

“Before I fucked up and yelled at you for showing love and compassion and loyalty,” Harry corrected gently. “As much as I knew you were owed both explanation and apology, I couldn’t see how you could forgive me. But once you said the words, even the faint hope of it would be gone.”

“So what was different that day?”

“I also knew you were planning something. I didn’t know what. But I could feel it, and I could feel that your plans were coming to a head. If you were getting ready to leave, perhaps to take down myself, Merlin, or even all of Kingsman, I knew there would be no chance of apologizing once you did so.”

“Thought you could change my mind, eh?”

Harry smiled wryly. “God no. No, if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that once you’ve truly set your course, nothing is going to get in the way.”

“Except the ones I love,” Eggsy reminded him. “Mum with the gymnastics and military, JB with Lancelot’s position.” He nodded slowly at the shocked look on Harry’s face. “Merlin were right, there. I did love you. I could tell you knew I was up to somethin’. Kinda figured that you were using that as your ace in the hole to get me to change my mind.”

“I didn’t know, not for sure. Merlin had said as much, but I didn’t know if he was right or wrong, or even just making things up to manipulate me,” Harry admitted. “Even if I had, I would never have used it against you like that.”

“Hard to believe that.”

“I can’t blame you for that.” Harry looked down at the medal still in his hand, fingers idly turning it round and round. He swore softly as a thought occurred to him.

“What?”

“Oh, Merlin. It rankles that he was right. He suggested you might have faked your death,” Harry explained.

Eggsy snorted. “Well, it wasn’t what I was planning all that time if it makes you feel better. Just took the opportunity presented to me.”

“So what _were_ you planning? Do I get to know?”

“At first, I was thinkin’ of just burning it all to the ground,” Eggsy informed him. “Merlin was always so sure of himself, an’ none of you could ever remember that I ain’t stupid. That’s where all the bugs came in. Merlin handed out listenin’ devices an’ jammers and shit like candy, smug arse never thinkin’ any of us’d ever figure out how they really worked. D’you know, he actually has the other handlers’ systems slowed down a touch? So’s when it’s really important, they have to call him in to take over ‘cause he’s ‘the best’?” Harry swore quietly and Eggsy nodded at him. “If I weren’t sure he’s actually out to help people, I’d have already killed him. He just likes being the best, is all. Likes the power an’ everyone lookin’ to him to fix things. But it was obvious when I looked, I mean really looked. So I started takin’ the stuff apart to see how it worked, an’ it weren’t hard to figure out ways around the jammers and other ways of listening in. Put back doors into all his systems – and I took a good lesson from Valentine and made _my_ system locked with biometrics. Even if he’d found my back doors, he’d never be able to hack his way in. I got everything, Harry. Was gonna hand you all over to MI6 an’ all the others out there so’s they’d know all about you, all about the spies so deep in the shadows they’d never even gotten a single name to put to one of ‘em. You’d have been leashed, well and truly, if you wasn’t all imprisoned for the things you all done.”

“Am I to be the first, then?” Harry asked softly. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Nah. Changed my mind, didn’t I?” Eggsy met his eyes. “I watched you, Harry. Once I made my way back and could actually access my system. I watched you. You was – you was really hurting, over me. I watched you cut out everyone, an’ every day, it looked like you was bleedin’ out. An’ at first it felt good, I won’t lie about that. Felt good to think you felt even a little of what you made me feel. An’ I was watchin’, live, when Merlin showed up all set to get you drunk in my memory, like that was all you needed to move on and get back to normal, an’ I watched you stab that broken bottle into his shoulder. He was your oldest friend, wasn’t he?”

“Once. He was that to me once. No longer,” Harry told him.

“You cut him, and I swear, you wanted to shove that bottle somewhere else. Never had no one do something like that for me. Started thinkin’ then, yeah? And started lookin’ at all the others. Whole place gossips like school kids. None of ‘em knew about you, about the ones lookin’ to take us all out one by one that you was huntin’. I thought they was sidin’ with Merlin that whole time, thought they expected me to just get over it all. They wasn’t. They was playin’ a part cause Merlin, he made himself indispensable. They was afraid to cross him and lose his support when they needed it. But they was angry too. They should have been told there was danger lookin’ right at them. They could have helped. Even the ones that couldn’t have helped deserved to know so they could defend themselves.”

“They did deserve to know,” Harry agreed.

“Once I was really lookin’, I couldn’t fuck them all over like that. They was all like me. They all were there to keep people safe, to take out the bad people in the world that wanted to hurt others for power or money or just cause they can. They all sacrificed normal lives, normal friends and family to do the job. Weren’t their fault that Merlin fucked up.”

“Thank you, for that. For what it’s worth, on their behalf, thank you.”

Eggsy just shrugged. “So then I had to think of what I would do instead. Cause no way was I coming back. I would never be able to trust anyone like I used to again, an’ it’s better to be on your own, doing it, than trying to do it when you can’t trust the guys lookin’ over your shoulder that’s supposed to have your back. I kept watchin’, an’ I saw you adding the Guinevere position. Someone to watch over everything, someone who’s gonna look after the _people_ of Kingsman. If we’d had that already, then –”

“Then there would have been someone to stop us,” Harry said. “Me and Merlin and Roxy. Someone who would have known the damage we were doing and been able to stop all of us.”

“Yeah.” Eggsy stretched his legs out, leaning back on his hands, face tilted to the sun. he looked carefree, to a casual glance. Harry liked the look on him. “I been doing all kinds of thinking. Like. I don’t think you shoulda been on that mission, rock solid cover or not. Not after the church, and getting’ exposed to Valentine’s SIM cards. I don’t care how well fuckin’ trained we all are, or how experienced you were, you had your control completely stripped from you. It wound you up like a fuckin’ robot an’ made you kill dozens of people. That’s the kinda thing that fucks with your head. An’ it ain’t like you had therapy to deal with it. Fuck, Merlin didn’t even give you time to finish healin’ physically, did he?”

“There was no time,” Harry pointed out. That, at least, was the truth. Chester’s betrayal, the world going mad, the chaos of the days afterword, and then losing two agents. Merlin, he supposed, had to have been desperate. He’d thought it before, of course, though not in the light of his own pain. It hadn’t helped then, and it didn’t make him feel even slightly forgiving towards the man.

“There could have been. Any one of us could have taken it on, it didn’t have to be you. Any of our deaths could have been faked easily enough. But he threw you out there instead. He shouldn’t have done that. It weren’t fair to you, either. And when you finally was brought back, you had to deal with _me_. Deal with me being angry and betrayed, and he didn’t do fuck all to help fix any of it.”

“He doesn’t bear all the blame, Eggsy,” Harry said softly. “More than once, I considered coming back myself to tell you. I didn’t.”

“I know that. But you was also dealing with the trauma of the church, of almost dyin’, and you was the only agent hunting down the bastards out to kill us all. That kinda weight….” Eggsy shook his head. “Ain’t no one gonna think clearly. Merlin had options that you didn’t. So did Roxy, although you’re right about her being too new to know when to disobey orders. Merlin was the one with options, with an entire agency of people at his back. He had power, resources, and experience. So yeah, you deserved me being angry at you. So did Roxy. But he deserves most of it, cause he’s the one most to blame. All my thinkin’, an’ that’s what I came up with. I saw the changes, Harry. An’ yeah, I fuckin’ listened to some of the doc’s sessions with some of ‘em. She talks a lot of sense. Even if she weren’t talking to me, there was a lot there to make me think. An’ then I kept watchin’ you. You didn’t even look back the day you left. You gave your whole life to Kingsman, Harry. But you didn’t even look back. And you’ve been nearly a shut-in, these last weeks. You putter round the house, aimless as a fuckin’ ghost. And then you come here. Today. An’ I’m still wondering why. What was you plannin’, Harry?”

“Nothing,” Harry said honestly. “I simply…needed a focus. I knew your body wasn’t here, but I needed a place to think. To grieve, I suppose. This was all that was left of you, really, unless I wished to call on your mother and sister, and I highly doubt I would have been at all welcome.” He raised an eyebrow. “Were you planning to tell your mother you’re alive?”

“She knows,” Eggsy said casually. “Told her months ago, not long after I got back to the country. Her and Daisy, they was easy for you all to forget, just my civilian mum and toddler sister, who never knew I wasn’t actually a tailor. No one gave a thought to putting them under surveillance. An’ mum is good at keeping secrets.”

“I imagine she is,” Harry acknowledged. “So I wasn’t planning anything more than simply…mourning you. Not suicide, if that’s what you’re thinking. I have had little interest in living, I agree, but I certainly wasn’t about to take my own life. If only so that Merlin couldn’t use that as some sort of excuse for himself – dismissing my anger towards him as merely a symptom of a deeper underlying mental problem. And yourself? What are you planning, now that you no longer wish to destroy Kingsman, and you have no wish to rejoin them?”

“Travel,” Eggsy said promptly. “Might keep an eye on them from time to time, but mostly I think I’ll travel. Been stayin’ someplace nice and warm, these last months. Had my first properly warm winter ever. Thought it might be nice to see some other warm places.”

Harry smiled, for the first time in longer than he could remember. “Fiji is beautiful,” he suggested. “I was there in, oh, the late 90’s, gathering intel on….well. Hardly matters. I was able to play tourist, briefly, as part of my cover. There’s a waterfall there that works as a natural water slide.”

“Yeah?” Eggsy hummed a little, considering.

“Oh yes. I didn’t go down myself. It was rather populated, and a single man would have stood out amongst the groups and families, but it was quite beautiful.”

“Hmm.” They fell silent then, Eggsy with his head tilted up to the sunlight, Harry leaning against the marble at his back. He kept drinking in the sight of the young man, gaze tracing over his features, the bleached hair that had a hint of a wave at the ends. With Eggsy’s head tilted, he could make out a pale, jagged scar behind one ear where the tracker used to be. It had clearly not been a surgical procedure when it was removed. His right forearm bore another scar, several centimeters long, and puckered as though it hadn’t received proper medical attention. He was otherwise the picture of health, and Harry was glad of it. Whatever he had been up to, aside from spying on the spies, it had clearly done him good. Harry knew himself to be thinner than he’d ever been, and the lines of his face deeper than he had ever thought possible. He was okay with that. Eggsy was still young. Intelligent, healthy, and thank god so full of life. Harry could happily return to his empty little house, content in the knowledge that Eggsy Unwin was out in the world, happy and free, away from all the ugliness that came with being a Kingsman.

“I’m sorry,” Harry heard himself say. “I’m sorry I dragged you into Kingsman. You deserved so much better, Eggsy. You were as brilliant at it as I knew you would be, so brilliant, but you deserved better than the secrets, lies, and paranoia that life brings.”

“I did a lot of good,” Eggsy shot back, a little sharply.

“You did,” Harry agreed instantly. “So much good, Eggsy. That doesn’t change the fact that you deserved better that what it brought you.”

“What was you sayin’ when I got here? Something about old fools?” Eggsy shifted, coiling himself until he was on his knees, face to face with Harry. “I loved bein’ a spy, Harry,” he said quietly. “You changed my life that day. You didn’t look at me and see trash, you looked at me and saw someone with potential. Someone that could _do_ things, good things, in life. There’s a lot of maybe’s and coulda been’s to be had, but fact is, I loved it. I loved you,” he added, voice nearly a whisper. “That life, and Merlin, fucked us both over. But where I left, with every intention of burning it to the ground, you _fixed it_. Fixed it so it could keep going, keep protecting people, and so that the people doing the work would be looked after and lead by the best one for the job. I learned so much from you. Teach me one more thing, yeah? Teach me how to _fix_ , Harry.”

Harry brought a hand up to his face, cupping that square jaw in his palm. “Fix what, Eggsy? I’ll show you how to fix anything, if I can. Whatever you’d like,” he promised, recklessly, breathlessly.

“Fix _us_. Cause see, there was another thing I been thinkin’. I been thinking that if things had gone down proper, if Merlin had gotten his head out of his arse and done things right, we woulda had time, yeah? You coulda healed proper, and we coulda – we coulda got to know each other _right_. I’m tired of bein’ angry, Harry.”

“Oh, Eggsy.” Harry brought his other hand up, medal falling to the ground between them, and threaded his fingers through silky hair. He brought their foreheads together, pressing tightly, eyes closed. “If I knew how to fix us, we wouldn’t be here, would we? Only you can possibly know that. Anything you need, anything you want, I will do. Whatever you wish of me is yours,” he promised.

“Anything? You really mean that, Harry? You'll do anything I want, give me anything I want?” Eggsy demanded.

“Darling boy, how could I not? You being alive is already a gift more precious than the world to me. If there is anything in my power to give you, you need only say.”

Eggsy drew back, hands clamping down on each of Harry’s wrist tightly enough to grind his bones together. “Then I want _you_ ,” he hissed. “Give me you, Harry. Come with me. To Fiji and anywhere else we want to go. Everything else tried to take you from me, even my own anger. Fuck all of that and all of them and _come with me._ ”

“Is that all? Easiest thing in the world, Eggsy,” Harry told him. “You...might have needed to shoot me to keep me from following you, now that I know you’re alive.”

Eggsy gaped at him. “You really mean that? You’ll come with me, travel wherever, stay off grid? Stay out of _Kingsman_?”

“Yes to all of it,” Harry swore. Eggsy surged to his feet, pulling Harry up with him. Harry stumbled a bit as Eggsy began to tow him towards the street. “Eggsy, darling, wait!” Eggsy turned to him, face already closing off again. Unable to stand seeing that terrible, cold blankness, Harry used Eggsy’s own hold on his wrist to pull the younger man to him, wrapping his arms as tightly as he was able and tucking his face in his hair. “Darling, please slow down. You’ve worked so hard to stay out of Kingsman’s notice. No one is looking for you. But you must know that they’ll be watching _me_. There are no cameras in the cemetery, dear heart, but there are on the street. If you’re with me out there, Kingsman will start hunting you down, and I would hate to have to start killing our ex-coworkers.”

Eggsy growled against his neck. “Fair point.” Harry shivered at the feel of his breath against this neck and found himself trying to pull him closer, trying to imprint the feel of his body against his own. “We should also get rid of your tracker. So here’s the plan: go home and do whatever you need to do to the house, throw out food or whatever. Just get ready for a very extended trip. I’ll meet you there in a few hours, after I adjust Kingsman’s systems so they think they’re tracking you when they ain’t.”

Part of Harry wanted to ask where and how he’d learned all that, as the ability to do those kinds of things wasn’t part of the standard agent training. Most of him didn’t care, however. Eggsy’s face had not been picked up at any point in the last year by any camera or satellite in the year since he’d ‘died’, so it was obvious that he was able to do so quite handily. Where, when, and how he’d learned it didn’t matter.  “As you wish. Be careful, won’t you?”

“Always, Harry.” Eggsy stepped back and met Harry’s eyes. His gaze was fierce, a little wild around the edges. “Be ready,” he said, a thin warning underlying his tone. Harry didn’t begrudge him his lack of trust. He and the others had already betrayed him once, after all. It would take time for Eggsy to learn to trust him again, if he ever fully did.

“I will,” Harry promised. Reluctantly, he stepped back and let Eggsy go. The young man turned and strode away. Harry returned to the empty grave. The flowers were a lost cause, so he gathered them up to dispose of them. Belatedly, he also snatched up the medal, almost lost in the grass. Then he left the cemetery in the opposite direction from Eggsy.

By the time he returned to his home, he found himself immeasurably grateful for the medal in his pocket. Without it, he had no doubt that he would have convinced himself that his mind had created an elaborate hallucination. Even with the medal, he was still half convinced. Nevertheless, he still set about shutting up the house for an extended absence. He made sure the windows were all tightly shut and locked, his weapons cache was fully secured in case of a break-in, and the perishables were thrown away.

He packed a small suitcase with a variety of clothes, adding more in the way of casual clothing than he would normally, though he still packed a couple of suits. It never hurt to be prepared, and laying hands on a bespoke suit in a pinch would be far more difficult than the effort to bring one with.

He also added the documentation that belonged to a secret identity that he had created years ago, one he had prepared in an excess of paranoia without Kingsman’s knowledge, and maintained throughout the years. He had created it when forging papers was much easier, and during a bad year when he’d feared Kingsman had been compromised from within, with himself as a target. It had turned out otherwise, but he had never really regretted the preparation, and was grateful for it under the circumstances. It gave him anonymity while traveling, particularly if Eggsy was successful at tampering with the facial recognition software that continually ran on Kingsman servers, and would also provide them with nearly unlimited funds.

With all that done, he poured himself a measure of brandy and sat himself on his sofa to wait. It was always possible that all of it really had been a sign of his cracking sanity. It was also possible that, upon further reflection, Eggsy would change his mind and not come for him. God knew the young man deserved far better than Harry in his life, and after all the pain of the past couple of years, he could easily see Eggsy deciding he was much better off without him as baggage. Harry would not be able to blame him for that, and would bear the pain of his loss from his life with something like contentment, as at least Eggsy was alive rather than dead, and that would always be the most important thing.

The day wore on, edging from afternoon into the evening. As the setting sun turned his living room scarlet, his hand began to shake slightly as he sipped ever so lightly at his nearly gone drink. His other hand clutched tighter and tighter at the medal, a solid and even slightly painful reminder that it _had_ happened. He _had_ seen Eggsy, spoken to him, hugged him. The last of the brandy slid down his throat as the last of the sun finally slipped below the horizon. He rose mechanically, tucked the medal in his pocket, and went to wash the glass.

His palm bore a circular bruise where he had been clutching the bit of metal for so long. He returned to the sofa to resume his wait, though he had little hope of Eggsy arriving for him. Perhaps, a small, unpleasant voice whispered in the back of his mind, perhaps _this_ what Eggsy revenge – making him think there was a chance to have him back in his life, then leave him pining for the rest of his days. If that were so, he shot back at it, then it was both well done and very poorly thought out, as Harry was still more glad than anything to know Eggsy was alive.

It was well after dark when his front door creeked open, making him actually focus his gaze in the direction. In the faint street light that made it past the curtain, he spotted a familiar outline easing inside. “Eggsy,” he murmured, heart beginning to thud. He had been a spy too long not to recognize the barely there gleam of a gun in the young man’s hand. He stood and moved away from the windows. It was unlikely that Eggsy was there to kill _him_ , which meant that something must have happened to prompt the use of a weapon.

“Harry, you alright, bruv?” Eggsy hissed, sliding the rest of the way inside and carefully shutting the door.

Harry paused, head cocked to the side. “Quite alright, dearest. Why, what has happened?”

“Nothing. S’just – the lights. You ain’t got a single light on in here, yeah? Thought maybe something happened to _you_.”

“Ah.” Harry reversed direction to turn on a single lamp, squinting briefly against the dim yellow glow that flooded the room. Eggsy scanned him swiftly, eyes taking in every detail, including the packed bag waiting near the door. “No, nothing. I was simply…waiting.”

“In the dark?” Eggsy said, skeptical.

“In the dark,” Harry confirmed.

Eggsy studied him as he flicked the safety on and tucked the pistol beneath the light jacket that he wore. “You thought I weren’t coming,” he said flatly.

“It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that you’d changed your mind and decided you were better off without me,” Harry admitted. “It is so much more unlikely that you’d want a washed up, broken ex-spy who is well old enough to be your father, particularly one who has caused you so much pain.”

Eggsy nodded slowly. “I was half convinced I’d be met by a team from Kingsman,” he confessed. “Thought you mighta got angry after thinking on it for a bit, yeah? Cause it ain’t like I had a good reason like all of Kingsman being hunted for lettin’ everyone think I was dead.”

Harry approached him, a little hesitant now that the initial rush of discovery has faded slightly. He watched carefully as he reached out a hand to curl around Eggsy’s wrist. He could feel the younger man’s pulse against his fingertips, as elevated as Harry’s own. “No, perhaps not. You only had the betrayal by the people you trusted most as cause. Reason enough, I think.”

Eggsy twisted his arm to change the grip so they were holding hands. “’S over with now, yeah? It needs to be over with, Harry. We’re going, and we’re bloody well going to enjoy our lives.”

Greatly daring, Harry brought their joined hands to his lips to brush a kiss over Eggsy’s knuckles. “As you wish, dearest. I am ready. Where would you like to go first?”

“Are you kidding? We’re going to Fiji! I wanna see that natural water slide. With you.”

“As you wish,” he said again, agreeably, not actually very interested at all in where they were going.

Eggsy narrowed his eyes at him slightly. “You ever seen the movie ‘The Princess Bride’?” he asked.

Harry smiled and reached up, tugging at the sun bleached hair curling over Eggsy’s ear. “Of course, dearest.”

“Gonna start calling you Wesley, you ain’t careful with all that ‘as you wish’ stuff.”

Smile widening, Harry repeated, “As you wish.”

“Oh, fuck it,” Eggsy muttered, before leaning up to claim Harry’s mouth with his own. Harry opened to him instantly, of course. Opened to the kiss and let Eggsy in, let him claim his mouth the same way he had claimed his heart in that pub when he’d put Harry so thoroughly in his place for being a judgmental ass. He pressed closer when Eggsy pulled him, winding his arm around a trim waist to press them flush together as they had been earlier in the day. This time, however, there were matching erections to grind together, stress and shock worn off to allow for other feelings to take precedence. Eggsy spun them and pressed them up against the door, grinding a little harder against him while their hands clutched and their mouths very nearly ate at each other desperately. Harry let out a throaty moan when one of Eggsy’s hands stroked down his back to grip his arse.

Sadly, the sound seemed to bring Eggsy to his senses. He ripped himself away as suddenly as he’d kissed him, panting heavily. “Fuck. Fuckin’ hell, Harry, we ain’t got _time_ for this right now.”

“Apologies, darling,” Harry said, not sorry at all. He couldn’t seem to drag his gaze away from Eggsy’s red, kiss-swollen lips. “I’m unfamiliar with our travel agenda.”

“Well, we got one, so stop lookin’ at me like that and get your gear.”

“As you wish.”

Eggsy glowered at him. “Save that for the ship! For fuck’s sake, Harry, we got a big ass bed waitin’ on a big ass boat, but if we miss it, we gotta wait another two fuckin’ weeks to catch the next one.”

The mention of a ship cooled Harry’s ardor somewhat. He wasn’t looking forward to Eggsy being on another boat, though at least this time Harry would be with him. “Very well. Did you have an identity for me, or shall I use one of my own?”

“Got you all set up,” Eggsy told him, eyeing with a little suspicion. “Harry, if you ain’t really. I mean. If you don’t really want to come with me….”

Harry reached out to pull Eggsy close again. “Please do not doubt how much I want to be with you, dearest. I have never known a pain so great as believing you dead. I love you, utterly and madly, and wherever you go, I am happy to go as well. London holds nothing for me if you aren’t here.” He paused, then added slightly reluctantly, “I simply am not fond of the idea of you and boats together.”

Eggsy’s face cleared. “Ah. Well, you’ll be happy to know this ain’t no boat. It’s a fuckin’ five star resort that happens to travel over water. So let’s go, yeah? I wanna see what you look like with a tan!”

Harry snorted his amusement. “Red,” he answered, stooping for his luggage. “I look red, darling, because I do not tan, I burn.”

“Then we’ll stock up on loads of sunblock!”

Smiling, Harry let himself be towed outside to a sleek little black sports car idling almost silent at the curb.

~

_Five years later_

 

Harry sipped his coffee, eyes barely flickering over his newspaper to acknowledge Merlin as the man unceremoniously sat opposite him. He went back to reading about the latest celebrity scandal, content to wait the other man out.

His patience was rewarded with a decidedly impatient: “How the bloody hell did you get out of London without me noticing?” Merlin demanded.

“Magic,” Harry murmured.

“You pain in the ass,” Merlin snapped back. “There are protocols in place for a reason. You damned well know that. Now tell me how you slipped out of London without my software picking you up? How did you manage to tamper with it? You were locked out once you retired. Would my systems even have picked you up this time if I hadn’t done a complete overhaul recently? You know, I had to upload an actual photograph of you that I had laying around before the software would pick your face up, and even then, it didn’t link your name! How did you do that?”

“You’re not the only one good with computers, Hamish. You have no cause to be tracking me anyway. No right to do so. I did my duty and I have retired. I have no interest in returning, nor do I wish to maintain any sort of social relationship with any of you. You’re intruding where you aren’t wanted or needed. Please do us both the curtesy of leaving.”

Merlin looked frustrated. “You’re still angry, after all this time?”

“No. I am indifferent,” he explained, almost gently. “You no longer enter my thoughts. I can go months at a time without thinking of Kingsman, or any part of her, at all. I will not return, nor will I allow Kingsman to intrude in my life again.”

Merlin looked away. “Would it help if I apologized? You were right. About a great many things, including Guinevere. She helped me reassess my actions and my motivations for them. I handled the whole situation badly. There are many things I would change, not least of which is telling Eggsy that you survived. I was a poor friend and a poor boss, while I had that title.”

“I am glad she’s helped you.”

“Yeah, bruv, better late than never,” Eggsy said coolly, dropping down into the seat to Harry’s right. He leaned over, slid an arm around Harry’s shoulders to place a hello kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“Darling,” he murmured, twining his fingers with the ones hanging over his shoulder. He looked back at Merlin, who was slack jawed and pale and staring at Eggsy. “You’re not insane, and I did not go out and find a doppelganger.” He raised his eyebrows at his lover, _are you sure about this?_ And got an easy shrug in response. “You were, as it happens, actually correct about one thing back then: Eggsy faked it.”

“Last thing I ever had to fake,” Eggsy said automatically, shooting a faint leer Harry’s way.

“Dearest,” Harry chided, “I have been quite content to not have anyone watching my every move, knowing every detail of my private life.”

“Sorry, love, can’t help it. Not like I can brag you up to my _mum_ like that, yeah? ‘S not like we’re gonna see him ever again after this.” Eggsy went from flirtatious to deadly serious in a moment, staring Merlin down. “Leave us alone, Merlin. We’ve left you alone. We’ve left Kingsman alone. Take our faces out of your systems. Let me stay dead. For what you did, that is the least that you owe us. We rarely come back to Britain as it is. S’all we want.”

“My duty –“

“Will get you killed one day, you ain’t careful.” Eggsy leaned over. “Listen here. Harry mighta forgiven you, or at least got to a place where he ain’t angry no more. Can’t say the same thing for me. When I think o’ you, it makes me fucking furious, mate. We just wanna be left alone, but if you ain’t gonna respect that, then we’ll have to take steps. We don’t want to. There’s too many good people in Kingsman doing too much good work, but we will if you force our hands. You may not know us as well as you used to think you did, but you gotta know _that_. Neither of us does well when our hands our forced. Neither of us is too…merciful. Just walk away, bruv. Forget you ever saw us.”

For a moment, Merlin look furious. None of them truly did well with threats. But after a moment the anger faded into resignation and he nodded. “You’re right. You deserve your freedom.” He stood up, carefully tucked the chair back in, and held out his hand. “Be well, Harry,” he said softly. Harry shook it with a slight nod. Merlin turned to Eggsy, hand still extended. “You have my deepest apologies, Eggsy. Be well.” Eggsy shook it, nodding as well, though Harry knew him well enough to know that he didn’t believe the older man. No doubt there would be some quality time spent poking around Kingsman servers in their future.

But that would come later. For now, they watched Merlin trudge off, then Harry laid a few notes on the table and stood up. “It’s about time to go, darling. Daisy’s play starts in an hour – we don’t want to be late.”

“Can’t believe my lil flower is big enough for school plays,” Eggsy grumbled. “Was just the other day I was changin’ her diapers.”

Harry chuckled indulgently. “I expect most parents feel that way.” He looked meaningfully in the direction Merlin had gone. “We could stay in London more often, if you’d like. I know how you miss your other and sister when we’re away.”

“Maybe,” Eggsy allowed. “I’ll think about it.” He brightened up a bit. “Won’t be til after our next trip, at least, if we do.”

“Oh? And where shall our next trip be to?” Harry asked, sliding his arm around Eggsy’s waist to pull him snug against his side. Even after five years, he still could not get enough of the feel of the younger man pressed against him, regardless of reason or circumstance. Harry was not a proud man – he happily took the thinnest of excuses to touch or wrap around his younger lover.

“Fiji, of course! It’s our anniversary soon, love. Thought we might go back.” Eggsy cast a sly little smile up at Harry.

“Would it be possible, do you think, to avoid the food poisoning this time?”

Smile widening, Eggsy said, “As you wish, Harry.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I wanted to resolve things a bit with Merlin. And in the back of my mind, Eggsy always did survive. He's just too smart to not take advantage of an opportunity when he sees it. So a bit of a happier ending for our boys.


End file.
